


Jade Harley: adopt a troll

by CB_Magique



Series: Troll Pets [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adoption, Animal Rescue, Caretaking, Gen, Happy Ending, Past Abuse, Past Neglect, Pets, Petstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:24:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CB_Magique/pseuds/CB_Magique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't fair. With how badly he’d been treated, the least he deserved was a chance to live a happy, safe life. Not to get put on a death row. But what if nobody adopted him? Against her firm morals and better judgment, Jade decided to adopt a troll as a pet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter 1

 

\-- at 8:48a.m. ectoBiologist began pestering gardenGnostic \--

 

EB: morning jade.  
EB: i didn’t expect to find you online so early, especially on a saturday.  
GG: hi john ^_^  
GG: yeah i normally don’t get up this early when i don’t have to go to the lab  
GG: the vet called yesterday afternoon it seems i can pick up bec this morning  
GG: i’ve missed him :(  
EB: ah, i see.  
EB: i remember you mentioning something about him getting hurt, but that was a while ago.  
GG: yes that was when he got in a fight with the neighbour’s cat  
GG: and since then he’s had a bad cyst and needed to have it removed  
GG: but he’s finished his post op recovery and can come home now :D  
EB: with the cone of shame and everything, ha ha!  
EB: you’ll send me a picture of that, won’t you?  
GG: don’t make fun of bec! >:(  
GG: that’s mean  
EB: i was only joking.  
EB: that doesn’t mean pictures of dogs with the cone of shame aren’t funny though. that didn’t stop being a thing that was funny.  
GG: oh you!  
EB: anyway, it’s their own fault for being so silly and not understanding that if it hurts you shouldn’t scratch it.  
GG: not being able to speak human isn’t their fault  
EB: vriska had a similar thing a while ago. she got hurt playing on the pogo ride.  
EB: she kept poking at it but at least when you tell her to stop, she does.  
GG: vriska?? oh your troll? how is she?? and what’s it like???  
GG: having a troll i mean  
EB: she’s fine now. keeping her is really like keeping any other pet, except she can learn to talk back to you and have conversations and stuff.  
EB: although having opposable thumbs means they can get into all kinds of mischief and trouble that even dogs can’t get into.  
EB: it’s pretty neat, even though vriska is a handful sometimes.  
EB: why don’t you get one? dave and rose already have trolls of their own too.  
GG: nah  
GG: i’ve already got bec and besides i think keeping a troll is actually kind of creepy  
EB: how so?  
GG: they just look so much like people  
GG: and i keep reading these stories on the internet and seeing in the news how people train them to do crime or do weird sexual things to them  
GG: that really isn’t cool  
GG: and a pet that you can have a conversation with doesn’t really sound like a pet if you ask me  
GG: sounds more like a companion  
GG: that you own :/  
GG: see where the creepy starts coming in???  
EB: yeah, I see. but people do those sorts of things to other kinds of pets too.  
EB: like this story i read in the paper recently about a guy who trained a parrot to fly into a jewellery store and steal stuff.  
EB: there are creeps in all walks of life.  
GG: i’d still feel weird like i was keeping a human being as my pet or something equally suss  
GG: just tell me you’re not making vriska do anything weird and cruel  
EB: define weird and cruel.  
EB: is teaching her to use a pogo ride fitting the bill? because it is pretty weird to see a pet using that thing and it’s practically a fatal-injury-trap.  
GG: fatal-injury-trap??  
EB: death-trap seemed too dramatic.  
EB: other than that, the only thing I make her do is help me around the shop.  
GG: like an employee you don’t have to pay? :P  
EB: more like a daughter who helps me run the family business.  
EB: although she usually isn’t much help. she makes a lot of mess by opening up some of the games for sale and playing them in the shop.  
EB: and she never picks up after herself.  
EB: i swear, she is the messiest troll ever in existence. dave and rose have never had cleanliness problems with their trolls.  
EB: at least that’s what they say.  
GG: ha ha XD  
GG: oh wow look at the time the vet will be opening soon  
GG: you have to open the shop on saturday too right?  
EB: yeah, but not til later.  
GG: i hope you get good business today  
EB: heh, thanks jade.  
EB: hopefully i’ll be able to keep vriska from pulling things off the shelves.  
EB: and remember to send me that picture of bec’s cone of shame.

 

\-- at 9:16a.m. gardenGnostic ceased pestering ectoBiologist \--

 

Jade Harley pushed herself away from her computer and got out of her office chair. She’d been on Pesterchum to pass the time until she could go and collect Becquerel but it seemed that she had let time get away from her. It was almost nine o’clock. She gathered up the things she would need to bring Bec home – his leash and some blankets and pillows for him to sit on in the back seat of the car – and then put on some shoes before she left the house.

* * *

 

When she got to the vet’s surgery there weren’t many vehicles in the car park. Jade’s vet had a practice in a pink, concrete building and the pink carried on to the interior. The linoleum on the floor of the waiting room was just as pink as the paint on the outside. There were plenty of posters about caring for common pets (like dogs and cats and rodents) and to the left of the entrance there was the familiar giant shelf of various pet care products that the vet endorsed. Many of them were just overpriced branded versions of what you could get at a supermarket for much cheaper and what you probably didn’t really need for your pet anyway. The waiting room was equally as bare as the car park, with only a few people waiting for their early appointments. There was an old lady with a pigeon, two owners with cats and a man with an Alsatian that had one leg in a splint. Unusually, someone had moved around some of the chairs and set up a big playpen in the corner of the room. The walls of the pen seemed to be a bit too tall for a playpen in a public space, although the whole idea of a playpen at the vet was a little silly. Despite how strange it was, Jade thought nothing of it and proceeded to the reception counter.

   “Hello, it’s Jade Harley,” she said to the young nurse manning the computer. “I’m here to pick up Becquerel.”

   The nurse typed in a few keys and a couple of mouse-clickings later nodded. “Okay, he’s ready to be picked up. The vet hasn’t prescribed any medication for him; just made a note that says let him take it easy for a while, don’t get the stitches wet and don’t let him scratch. I’ll go and get him for you.”

   The nurse got up and walked around the counter. He went through the door leading to the examination rooms and left Jade to wait. She turned around and leaned against the desk, looking around the waiting room idly. Her eyes fell back onto the playpen and noticed there was a white A4 page stuck to the fence. She couldn’t read it from where she was so she got closer.

   She saw what was in the pen before she was close enough to read what the sign said. It seemed to be a small child dressed in grey pants and a black sweater but the skin was grey and it had nubby candy corn horns on its head. The hair was short and spiky as if it had been recently shaved. It was curled up in the corner of the pen facing the wall and didn’t move. There were alphabet blocks, a ragdoll and one of those elastic exercise devices thrown in haphazardly but didn't look like they'd been played with. A bowl of dry pet food and a full water dispenser also didn’t look like they’d been touched. Jade leaned down and peered at the plain black text on the sign through her glasses. In the top half of the page there was some general stuff written about the pet in question and what vaccinations it had had. The bottom half was mostly empty space with an advertisement in slightly larger text than the rest of the sign: “FREE TO A GOOD HOME”.

   “Miss Harley?”

   Jade gasped and straightened up. She turned around. The nurse was back and had Becquerel on a leash. Jade’s heart melted at the sight of him. The right half of his head was shaved where the operation had taken place and a big, white Cone of Shame was tied to his collar. His tail was hanging limply and his eyes were big and wide, either from the soreness or the shame, Jade couldn’t tell. It could have been both, it didn’t matter. Jade’s eyes lit up with excitement and pity as she ran back to her beloved dog with her arms wide open.

   “Ooh! Bec!” she exclaimed, getting down on her knees to give him a hug, being careful with the injured side of his head. “You’re all better now, yes you are.” She unclipped the vet’s leash and replaced it with her own bright green one. “It’s time to go home. Aren’t you excited?”

   Bec barked in agreement. Jade stood up but before she could make her way to the door, the nurse asked:

   “Were you taking an interest in the troll?”

   Jade looked over to the pen again, craning her neck to see over the top of the pen from the smaller angle. The troll still hadn’t moved. “I was just curious. What happened to its hair? I thought they were supposed to have really thick hair.”

   “It had to get shaved; it was matted right down to his scalp so there was nothing else to be done about it.”

   “I see. And it’s a ‘he’, huh? Well, is there something wrong with him? What’s he doing here?”

   “A friend of the doctor works for the Animal Welfare Agency,” the nurse said. ‘Doctor’ was what the two nurses here called the vet. “He asked us to try and find a good home for this troll. They haven’t had very much success with him so far. He doesn’t trust humans and I don’t blame him. He was in really bad condition when he came in; malnourished, dehydrated, dirt caked – it was the works. It was obvious that the previous owners were especially neglectful. I heard that they were breeders who were running a wriggler mill.”

   Jade hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard of a ‘wriggler mill’ before.”

   “They’ve been getting more common recently as trolls are coming back into fashion. They’re basically giant breeding facilities where the goal is to try to ‘mass produce’ trolls. As you can probably expect, the trolls get neglected quite badly. It’s particularly sad for this little guy, he’s been bred since his first year of sexual maturity.”

   Jade grimaced. How did people find it in themselves to abuse these creatures so badly? Breeding a troll from the first year of sexual maturity was like forcing a girl to get pregnant every year from the age of twelve or thirteen. At least, that’s how Jade imagined it.

   “The rescue centre he was at has been trying to find a home for him but with new animals coming in all the time they ran out of space,” the nurse continued. “If we can’t put this guy in a permanent home sometime soon then it’s probably best if we just euthanize him.”

   Jade gasped and covered her mouth with her fingers. She looked over to the troll. He still hadn’t moved and every moment longer that he stayed there the clock was ticking closer and closer to an early grave. That wasn’t fair at all! With how badly he’d been treated, the least he deserved was a chance to live a happy, safe life. Not to get put on a death row. I hope someone takes him, Jade thought. But what if nobody took him?

   “I’ll take him.”


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade begins to regret her decision and gets some moral support.

Back at home, Jade was now starting to regret her snap decision to take home a pet troll from the vet. The fact that she was now officially a hypocrite aside, she had no idea how to take care of a troll. What did they need? What did they eat? Did you need to groom them or were they like cats and just cleaned themselves?

   She kept Bec inside so that he ran less risk of doing something to pull his stitches or inflame them. He immediately retired to his basket in the living room and tried several times to scratch himself to no avail. The troll, on the other hand, turned out to be very difficult to deal with. The vet’s nurse had to muzzle him to stop him from biting any hand that came near him and wrapped his fingers up completely in bandages so that he wouldn’t lash out and scratch. That didn’t stop him from kicking, though. For the entire ride home he sat in the passenger seat of Jade’s car making a menacingly deep, throaty noise while he glared at her. No wonder it was hard to find him a home. Jade had to wrestle him into the house and once inside he skulked off to go and hide on the high shelf in the laundry that Jade couldn’t reach without a step ladder. He must have climbed over the washing machine and dryer to get up there, she thought.

   Well, if he wanted to stay up there for the time being, that suited her just fine. She needed to do some research anyway if she was planning on keeping him. So she returned to her computer and booted it up. She spent the next hour or so browsing through various troll care websites, forums and online stores. Apparently you could train a troll to pretty much take care of itself but most people didn’t. They needed a special sleeping place called a ‘recoopracoon’ that had to be filled with a special substance called ‘sopor slime’ to keep their skin hydrated and to stop the sleep terrors that naturally afflicted most if not all trolls. They seemed easy to feed; they could eat human food and even be fed on vegetarian diets but most websites recommended that high protein diets were best for their health. Most people recommended feeding them bugs and grubs. They also needed clothes, apparently. Some online shops sold special clothes made just for trolls, crafted so that it was easy to get around their horns. However, the clothes were ridiculously overpriced and Jade’s new troll had such nubby horns that simply sourcing some from the children’s section at a superstore would probably be adequate.

   Jade looked over at the papers she’d been handed regarding her new pet. According to the nurse, this was just a transcription of his original papers, which were in such bad condition that they couldn’t be passed on and half of the information on them couldn’t even be deciphered. The name ‘Karkat Vantas’ was still remaining on the troll’s file. She wondered if she should get him a collar or a badge that had his name on it. She’d seen quite a few pictures online of pet trolls with collars and name badges.

   Well, now she had quite a bit of shopping to do. If she went out now she might be able to get back by lunchtime. She shut down her computer and spun around in her chair to get ready to go out again. Suddenly she was face-to-face with a little troll wielding a knife. She screamed and grabbed him by the wrist just as he was about to bring it down on her. It seems he’d managed to pull the bandages on one hand off with his feet. Even as he stood there growling and trying to drive the knife home by pushing his bound hand against his other hand, Jade couldn’t help noticing how weak he was. Whether that was because of poor nutrition or just because he was small, she didn’t know but it took hardly any effort to pry the knife out of his fingers and push him back. He fell on his rump and made a little noise like a squeak in the back of his throat. It would have been cute if he hadn’t just tried to kill her.

   She put the knife down on her desk and grabbed him before he could go anywhere. Then she carried him back to the laundry room and locked him in. There wasn’t anything in there that he could do much damage with, was there? She hoped not.

   With Karkat (hopefully) out of trouble’s way, she got her keys and her purse, put Bec outside and left the house again, this time to shop.

* * *

 

 

Jade got back in the early afternoon, arms laden with bags full of children’s clothing, children’s toys, troll food and sopor slime concentrate. The recoopracoon had to be delivered because there were none small enough to fit in her little Prius. It would arrive later in the afternoon. While she considered where she would put the recoopracoon she let Becquerel back inside. She thought about letting Karkat out of the laundry but decided to wait a bit before she did that, partly out of fear that he might violently attack her again and partly out of fear of what state the laundry might be in. Instead, she settled on making lunch first.

   Come to think of it, she didn’t know if Karkat had already been fed today. She usually only fed Bec twice a day and he had his kibble ball for snacks in between. In the end, she thought it best if she made lunch for him too. She rummaged through her bags to look for the troll food boxes. She had a box of standard troll biscuits and something novel called ‘grubloaf’ that was sold in single-use microwavable packs or in premix packages. Jade poured some biscuits into a small bowl and heated up one of the microwaveable grubloaf packs. While it cooked, she made herself a sandwich.

   With all of the lunch prepared, it was now time for Jade to finally face the troll. She opened the laundry door slowly and cautiously, just a crack at first. When Karkat didn’t jump out immediately, she pushed it open further.

   “Karkat,” she called gently. “I made some lunch for you. Are you hungry?”

   All she got was a low growl in response. She pushed the door open fully and sighed. Her laundry was a mess. Her clothes were strewn everywhere and all of her washing powders and liquids had been thrown around. It was good thing she hadn’t washed any of those clothes yet. Karkat was huddled beneath an upturned basket in the corner of the room, wrapped in a cocoon of Jade’s dirty sheets and pillowcases.

   “Well, you can come to the kitchen and eat whenever you like,” she told him. “I’ll leave the door open this time. You might want to come soon before it goes cold, or Bec finds it and eats it all.”

   She turned and left, leaving the door open just as she promised. Karkat watched her go suspiciously. The smell of something warm and tasty was already wafting into the laundry room. He buried himself further into the stinky linen. It could be a trap. Previous owners had done this to him before; offered him food and then turned around and taken it from him or it had turned out to be a trick all along. Food was also a bribe in exchange for demeaning tricks and performances. Humans were always trying to trick him. When he thought he’d finally been saved from the mill, the humans he’d gone out on a limb and decided to trust had thrust him into box after pen after box, just like his owners at the mill had done (albeit they were cleaner boxes with better structural integrity and fresh food and water, but boxes nonetheless). Humans simply weren’t to be trusted.

   His stomach growled. It had been hours since he last had food but he couldn’t trust this new owner. He knew how to be hungry; he’d gone for days and days without a proper meal when he lived at the mill. Sometimes previous owners forgot to feed him and left him hungry all night. He could wait this out. He could beat her at this little game, he was sure it was a game.

   It took half an hour of sitting tight in a pile of filthy sheets with a gurgling stomach for Karkat to give up. She was offering and she wasn’t demanding anything in return… yet. That thought made him hesitate at the door. She hadn’t pestered him to get his food, or yelled at him for refusing so far, or taken the food away (he could still smell it). She hadn’t done anything any of his previous owners would have done. Cautiously, crawling on his hands and knees, he crept out of the laundry and into the kitchen.

   Jade was sitting at the kitchen table reading a science magazine, only halfway through her sandwich and glass of milk. At the other end of the table – a suitable distance away from her, Karkat decided – was a little bowl of troll biscuits, a blue mug and a saucer with what appeared to be a huge meatball placed on it. Was that for him? There was no way that was for him. Nobody had ever given him a meatball, let alone a meatball that big. It was probably for the dog. That dog was sitting under the table, wrapped up in his Cone of Shame, slightly closer to the end with the food. But did dogs eat troll biscuits? Karkat had once seen a parrot that he shared owners with eating his biscuits but he’d never seen any other animal eat his food. The dog crept out from under the table, over to the food end, and jumped up, putting his front paws on the edge of the table and reaching forward with a twitchy nose.

   “Bec! Get down!” Jade snapped.

   The dog retreated. His Cone of Shame prevented him from getting very far anyway. He scooted back under the table with his head and tail hung low in submission. However, Karkat could see that he was just going to lie in wait for another chance to get to the food. Clearly, it wasn’t for him. There was nobody else that the meal could be for. The bowl of troll biscuits – more importantly, that huge meatball – was obviously for him. He crawled towards the table. Jade was too absorbed in her magazine to notice him. He crept up to the food. The dog watched him distrustfully and began to growl at him.

   “Bec,” Jade warned, looking up from the article she was reading to see what her pet was growling at. Her stern expression softened and her eyebrows rose when she saw Karkat. She smiled at him. “Welcome back. Are you hungry now?”

   Karkat bared his teeth at her and snarled, making Bec leap to his feet and bark sharply at him. Karkat redirected his aggression at the dog.

   “Bec! Karkat! Cut that out!” Jade commanded. Bec turned to her and whimpered. He was only trying to be a good, protective pet. Karkat, on the other hand, gave her a distrustful glare. Jade noticed both reactions and decided to ignore Karkat for now. It wouldn’t do any good to fire up that troll any more than he already was. She turned to Becquerel with a smile. “Aw, I know you’re just trying to be a good dog, yes you are.”

   She beckoned for Bec to come closer and gave him a scratch behind the ear that didn’t have any stitches hear it. Then she stroked him down his back just to reinforce how appreciated he was. While she was doing that, Karkat reached up to steal the bowl of biscuits off the table. “No! You can only eat while sitting at the table,” she said sternly.

   Karkat gawked at her. That was a little more familiar; having orders given by his owners. But Jade was glaring at him, so he there clearly wasn’t going to be any leeway with this rule. He begrudgingly climbed onto the chair in front of the food. He started with the troll biscuits and chomped through them quickly because his stomach was demanding it. The blue mug was full of water, which confused him. No owner had ever given him a cup to drink out of, so he didn’t know how to drink from a cup. He tried leaning over it and just sucking the liquid up from the top but the water level dropped quite quickly. He ended up with two thirds of a mug of water that he couldn’t drink. That hardly seemed fair. Karkat reasoned that this was the trick. It was an unusual but no less cruel kind of torture: making him think he was allowed to have more than he really was. He growled.

   “Do you need help with that?”

   Karkat jumped and almost fell off the side of the chair. All of a sudden Jade was right beside him. She caught him and helped him adjust his seating, then picked up the mug and held it up to his lips. “Open up,” she said gently.

   Karkat’s eyes shifted between her and the mug. Was this another weird trick of hers? What was she going to do if he did open his mouth? Maybe she was going to tip the water in his face and drown him. He turned away from the mug.

   “Oh? Not actually thirsty, huh? That’s okay, then.”

   She went back to the other side of the table and resumed reading her magazine. Karkat stared at her. He wasn’t sure if this was a case of stubbornness buying him some time or if she really hadn’t meant to do anything malicious. Anyway, he decided to leave the water alone for now and turned to the meatball. It fit in both of his hands and it had gone cold on the outside but the core was still holding onto some delightful heat that made Karkat feel all tingly inside when he took a few experimental bites. The savoury flavour and oil on his tongue was heavenly and when he chewed there were some deliciously crunchy bits that made him shudder. Dear god, this was the best thing he had ever put in his mouth.

   He shoved the rest in his mouth as fast as he could, hardly savouring the flavour. He didn’t want this to be taken away from him. It was only after he’d swallowed and started licking the grease off his fingers that he thought that it may have been poisoned or had some strange, disgusting thing put inside it to make other humans laugh at him. He glared at Jade again. She wasn’t filming him or even paying attention to him but after a few moments of glaring she must have sensed his suspicion because she looked up and smiled at him.

   “Are you done? Did you like the grubloaf?”

   Grubloaf? Karkat had only heard of it once. When he’d been much smaller and living in a family home that tried to force him to stay outside all the time he used to watch TV through their living room window. During summer when the windows were left open he heard the word ‘grubloaf’ during a commercial he’d seen many times in silence. The ad claimed that the loaf was tasty, healthy and made your pet troll love you more. The owners never got it for him, though. None of his previous owners had ever fed him one.

   “Do you still want help with that water? I don’t want you to leave without finishing it since you haven’t had any for a few hours,” Jade said.

   She stood up and came around to Karkat’s end of the table again. She picked up the mug and held it up to his lips again. This time his opened his mouth. Jade poured the water in gently and slowly. It dribbled out of the corners of his mouth so he closed his lips around the rim and sucked it in. he finished the mug and wiped his chin. He gazed up at her warm, smiling face. She hadn’t done anything mean. She hadn’t tricked him, teased him or screamed at him. However, there was still a piece of Karkat’s mind that was telling him not to trust her. She was human. This kindness was probably temporary, this trick had been played on him once before and shame on him if he let himself be fooled again.

   He jumped over the back of the chair but tripped on it. It crashed to the floor loudly enough to set Becquerel off with alarmed barking. Jade tried to grab Karkat before he got away but he scrambled out of her reach. He sprinted back to the laundry and dived back under the sheets and the basket. Jade stared after him in shock. She followed his path to the laundry and tried to pry him out of his hiding spot. His menacing growl when she lifted the basket prompted her to give up quickly. She put that basket back and found another one to begin the laborious task of cleaning up the mess in the laundry. Karkat’s hissing and growling unsettled her but she thought it might be good for him to know that she wasn’t going to leave just because he decided he was going to be aggressive.

   The doorbell rang about an hour later while Jade was mopping up the laundry detergents. “Ah,” she muttered, leaning the mop against the wall. “That must be the recoopracoon delivery.”

   She left the laundry room before she could see Karkat poke his head out of the sheets curiously. He shook his head in disbelief. There was no way she had bought him his own recoopracoon. No. Way.

* * *

 

 

\-- at 9:47p.m. gardenGnostic began pestering ectoBiologist \--

 

GG: hi john  
EB: hi  
EB: so  
EB: are you going to let me see it?  
GG: see what?  
EB: the photo! you said you’d send me a photo of bec in his silly collar.  
GG: i said no such thing >:(  
GG: in fact i remember saying the exact opposite  
EB: aw  
GG: anyway how was your day?  
EB: um, normal, i guess.  
EB: vriska was the same as always.  
GG: how strict do you have to be with her?  
EB: pretty strict around the house. at the shop i usually let her off the hook more often than I should because she makes herself useful.  
EB: today she made a big mess of the warhammer displays but managed to convince a bunch of kids to all buy starter packs and one of them bought a rulebook. and she didn’t break anything.  
EB: that means a win for me :)  
GG: thats good  
EB: is something up? your typing is a little terse.  
GG: its been a stressful day :(  
GG: i need to talk to someone  
EB: lay it on me.  
GG: i made a decision that i think i may eternally regret  
EB: yes…  
GG: i got a troll  
EB: jade!  
EB: just this morning you said you found the idea of keeping trolls as pets to be creepy.  
GG: i know!!!!!  
GG: im officially a hypocrite  
GG: it was a snap decision i made when i went to pick up bec  
EB: what situation could be so exceptional that jade, of all people, would abandon her own moral code?  
GG: dont be annoying john X|  
GG: when i went to the vet they had a troll that they were giving away for free because he was rescued from a wriggler mill and nobody else wanted him  
GG: i could see why though he had a pretty nasty temperament  
GG: and the vets nurse told me that if they didnt find a home for him soon they were going to put him to sleep  
EB: as in the forever kind of asleep?  
GG: yes the forever kind of asleep  
GG: and i felt so bad for him i hoped that someone would be kind enough to adopt him but then i realised that someone else might not adopt him  
EB: and you thought that you should be the person kind enough to adopt him.  
GG: pretty much  
EB: i think that’s really big of you jade, it’s admirable. why would you regret giving a decent pet a second chance? even if he is kind of nasty.  
GG: he’s so difficult to handle he really doesnt trust humans  
GG: i got him to have some lunch but i think that was a fluke because he refused to eat dinner  
GG: he just spent the whole day curled up in a pile of my dirty sheets and im not ok with that  
GG: i need to clean that stuff eventually  
EB: XD  
GG: it isn’t funny  
GG: he made a huge mess in the laundry room that i had to clean up and now he refuses to leave the pile to get in this recoopracoon i just got  
GG: i filled it up with that slime stuff and everything  
EB: don’t worry, he’ll get in once he has a nightmare or something. besides, trolls need that stuff for their skin too. i know vriska gets really scaly and starts flaking if she hasn’t been in the slime for a while.  
GG: thats part of the reason why im worried because he does look really dehydrated  
GG: i haven’t been able to get a proper look at his skin since the rescue shelter volunteers dressed him in long clothes and hes not letting me near him anymore  
GG: i think ive bitten off more than i can chew  
EB: don’t sweat it jade, you’re the nicest person i know. your new troll would have to be insane to not warm up to you eventually.  
EB: and he was rescued so i don’t think it’s all that surprising that he doesn’t trust you. just give it a little time and he’ll realise that you’re ok.  
GG: i hope so  
EB: don’t worry. he will :)  
EB: if anyone was worthy of the heroic task of saving that poor troll, it was you.  
GG: thanks john that was really sweet :)  
GG: goodnight. hopefully tomorrow will be less taxing  
EB: goodnight.  


 

\-- at 10:21p.m. ectoBiologist ceased pestering gardenGnostic –-

* * *

 

 

Karkat couldn’t sleep. He’d tried to but was awoken several times by nightmares. In the early hours of the morning he gave up trying to sleep and just lay awake. The sheets kept him warm enough but it was still cold in the laundry. Warmer than a winter at the mill, though, he reminded himself. He had withstood years of nightmares even before he went to the mill. Yet his sleepy mind wandered to the recoopracoon. Perhaps that had been a trick, maybe the human was just trying to fool him into coming out from under his pile but there was no way he was coming out. Nope. No way. However, if the recoopracoon was real then it offered blissful relief from the dreams and the dry skin, relief that he hadn’t felt in years. At the mill the owners thought it was adequate to rub a troll down with a thin layer of slime once a month but that was useless. On the day of the rubbing Karkat would feel a bit sedate and almost okay with the fact that he lived in a box with subpar nutrition and disgusting water. It was the only thing worse about the pens; a troll in the pens didn’t get the rubdown for two months.

   Just like lunch, the allure of being submerged in sopor slime was too tempting. Karkat crawled out of his pile. The door was left open during the night and he slipped out to snoop around the house for the recoopracoon. It wasn’t next to the dog basket in the living room. He didn’t find it in the bathroom or the kitchen and he couldn’t get into Jade’s garage. So he went upstairs. The room at the top of the stairs was used as a study where Jade kept her computer and some of her take home work. There was another bathroom with no recoopracoon in it and an empty room, also with no recoopracoon. There was only one more place left to try but Karkat was already beginning to feel cheated. He highly doubted that the recoopracoon would be in Jade’s bedroom but the lunch hadn’t been a lie (and the grubloaf hadn’t been poisoned after all) so he decided to entertain the idea a little longer.

   He grasped the doorknob of Jade’s bedroom and twisted it as slowly and silently as he could. The door opened easily and Karkat crept inside, keeping to the wall beside the door lest he need to make a quick getaway. His nocturnal eyes scanned the room. It was warmer in here than in any other room since it was the only one occupied. Jade was fast asleep in her bed. On one side of the room were heavy curtains, probably covering a window that went to the floor. Bec was asleep in a pet bed placed beside the curtains. Karkat had been quiet enough so as not to disturb the dog. On the other side of the room there was a higher window, also covered, a chest of drawers and the recoopracoon he was looking for.

   On all fours Karkat crawled over to the recoopracoon, keeping a wary eye on both the dog and the human. The recoopracoon was brand new; it was soft and had no cracks or leaks anywhere. There were little windows around the middle that let him see inside it. The bright green sopor slime seemed to be glowing out of those little windows. Karkat felt excited. That meant it was filled up more than halfway. It might actually be deep enough for him to have a proper dreamless slumber. He peered through the entrance to the cocoon to check that the slime he saw on the outside was actually real. Yes, it was real. Or maybe it wasn’t really real in that it wasn’t sopor slime, just some sopor slime look-alike substance that the human had put in there to fool him. There was no way for him to tell by smell because sopor slime didn’t have an odour. The only thing he could do to test it was to get in and see if he had a good sleep. He didn’t really want to. This was the human’s bedroom and what if she found him inside when she woke up? Maybe she wouldn’t check. He made up his mind and hesitantly undressed himself, leaving only the boxers on, before he climbed into the recoopracoon.

   Sinking into the fresh slime relaxed him all over. He felt sedate already. His dried up skin felt cool and relieved as it soaked up the moisture in the slime. He dunked his head underneath it and rubbed it in his face. It was glorious. The soporific drugs sunk into his skin and made him drowsy. Not wanting to drown, he lifted his head out of the slime and moved his upper body to the shallower end of the recoopracoon where there was a padded ledge for his head to rest on. Even with his whole body stretched out his feet didn’t quite reach the other side of the recoopracoon. Not only was it filled up properly, it was roomy too. This must have all meant something. That Jade was really doing her best to make this temporary kindness gag seem legitimate or something. Karkat didn’t have time to think about it before the drugs knocked him out.

   Such blissful, dreamless sleep.

   When Jade woke up that morning and swung her legs out of bed the first thing she felt wasn’t the familiar carpet of her bedroom floor but a little pile of discarded clothes. Upon further inspection, they were the clothes that Karkat had been dressed in the day before. She curiously tip-toed towards the recoopracoon to peer inside, hoping that he really was inside it and not just scampering around her house without his clothes on. Karkat was inside and still peacefully asleep. She beamed. She’d been worried about him the night before and about the state of his skin, even more so when John informed her about the necessity of the slime. It seemed she didn’t have to worry so much anymore.

* * *

 

 

\-- at 10:22a.m. tentacleTherapist began pestering  gardenGnostic \--

 

TT: Good morning, Jade. I thought it would be reasonable to assume that you would be awake and possibly online by now and it seems that I was right.  
GG: morning rose  
GG: I haven’t heard from you in a while has anything interesting been happening in your life?  
TT: That would depend on your definition of interesting.  
GG: are you still writing that book?  
TT: I’ve almost finished writing the final chapters of the last instalment of Complacency of the Learned. I’m quite proud of the progress I’ve been making as well. I may be able to get it to print by the end of the year.  
GG: just in time for christmas! thats the best time to have a new book released  
GG: i’ll be sure to buy one  
TT: Just one?  
GG: maybe i’ll get another… for my cousin  
TT: I was only teasing you.  
GG: i know :P  
GG: but now that i think about it i should get one for jake  
GG: he will probably just be determined to hold out for the movie in a few years but i think encouraging him to read would be a good thing  
GG: maybe i should get him something easier first :\  
TT: I’ll admit Complacency of the Learned isn’t really suited to all walks of life. I’m actually surprised that it became as popular as it did. I wasn’t pandering to the lowest common denominator with this chronicle but they seem to have opted to read it nonetheless.  
TT: In any case, I’d say this is a good sign, wouldn’t you? It means that either the general population nowadays is better educated or the general population is aspiring to be better educated. The future does indeed look bright for both cases.  
GG: i guess  
GG: but reading wizard fiction doesnt make people more scientifically literate thats what i’d like to see happening  
TT: I think with the current state of the education system it would be fair to congratulate them for a small, isolated victory in the fields of literature and English literacy. Baby steps, Jade, baby steps.  
GG: well they need to be taking more baby steps  
TT: Agreed.  
TT: However, the main reason I wished to converse with you this morning was because of a little tidbit of information I heard through the grapevine very late last night.  
GG: oh no…  
TT: Is it true that you have acquired a new pet? A troll, to be specific?  
GG: yes it is true  
GG: did john at least tell you the reason why?  
TT: He did.  
TT: I think it was quite admirable of you to take on such a responsibility, especially because I know how much you’re opposed to the idea of keeping trolls as pets.  
GG: john said pretty much the same thing  
GG: but that doesnt mean it means any less to me coming from you :)  
TT: Well, you know that if you need any help or information you can come to any of us. We’ve been doing this for a while now. Perhaps it may even be beneficial if we all got together sometime and let our trolls meet each other. Well, Tavros and Kanaya already know each other but I have yet to introduce her to Vriska and now there’s one more troll she’ll need to become acquainted with.  
TT: Honestly, why haven’t we done this sooner? And we call each other friends.  
GG: a troll meet? that actually sounds kind of fun  
TT: Maybe we can even ask John’s cousin if she’ll bring her troll along. I hear she has an aquatic breed. That would make things quite interesting, wouldn’t you say?  
GG: um…  
GG: :\  
GG: there are aquatic breeds??? maybe thatll be interesting  
TT: I was kidding. Four trolls in one place is already a lot to handle. They’re not too social in large groups, you know.  
GG: no i didnt know  
TT: Really? That’s something you need get up to speed on. Where have you been getting your information from?  
GG: the internet  
GG: i haven’t really looked up their psychology or biology or anything just gone to pet care sites to find out what i need to take care of him  
TT: That’s a good start but did you know that there’s a book written by Elisha Keynes called So You Want to Raise a Troll: a complete guide to troll care and breeding. It was published last year so the information is fairly up to date. You may find it to be a helpful resource for you.  
GG: thanks i’ll look into it  
GG: it’ll be nice to have a reliable source of information all those websites and forums are usually filled with people who have conflicting opinions about pretty much everything and its hard to find solid facts  
TT: Well that’s just the internet for you; a rolling meadow of unbiased judgments and infallible truth.  
GG: Ha!  
TT: Before I let you go to take care of your new protégé, may I ask if he has a name?  
GG: oh yeah  
GG: he’s called karkat  
TT: Then I hope to meet Karkat in the near future, or at least hear plenty about him.  


 

\-- at 11:01a.m. tentacleTherapist ceased pestering gardenGnostic \--

 


	3. chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One month later and things seem to be going downhill...

It had been one month. One month and now Karkat feared that he was going to snap. But he couldn’t do that, oh no. That would be just what that human wanted, wouldn’t it? During his first week in Jade’s house he had tried to escape the premises but he was always either locked inside or locked in the backyard and he didn’t have enough muscle at the time to scale the fence. When Jade was at home he spent most of his time lying hidden in piles of laundry, under the car, on the high shelf in the laundry room and anywhere else where she would have difficulty finding and reaching him. By the second week, Karkat resorted to being unreasonably vindictive. He tried not to eat whatever she gave him but if he got too hungry he made sure to only eat when she wasn’t watching. Or steal Becquerel’s food. That annoyed her a lot. However, Bec’s food gave him tummy aches and made him constipated so Jade took him to the vet and got him some medication that he refused to take. He stole objects from her house to make his piles, dug holes in her garden (especially near the fence because those ones freaked her out a bit), tore her laundry while it was hanging on the line and hid many of her things in places he knew she couldn’t get to or wouldn’t find them (like underground). By the third week he’d stopped feeling the need to hide whenever she entered a room he was in and had fully accepted that she wasn’t going to do anything mean to him with his food and water. She’d even gotten him a water bottle when it was clear that he was going to continue having trouble with using cups. He used his recoopracoon more regularly and even agreed to go on leisurely evening walks with Jade and Bec. She kept him in a harness though, and after the first walk she made him wear a muzzle again, due to him biting a child and a passing Dalmatian in two separate incidents. By the fourth week Jade had taught him to use the TV (something that none of his previous owners had allowed him to do) and showed him how to record TV shows that were on during the day. She let him return to his species’ natural nocturnal sleep cycle and he stopped stealing her things. He still claimed the laundry room shelf as his space and kept his pile up there. It had been one month and he was beginning to forget that this was some kind of conspiracy to trick and torture him.

   On the other hand, Jade had followed Rose’s advice and bought the book she recommended. She made the decision after week one as Karkat’s behaviour became increasingly destructive and frustrating. The book was actually quite large and thick (trust Rose to recommend a tome) and wordy. She didn’t bother reading the whole thing; she just looked up particular things she wanted to know but it was already giving some generous insight into her new pet. According to his papers he was a ‘red blood’ and according to the manual their breed was a rare mutation that was generally discouraged by breeders. No good reason was given as to why. Red bloods were apparently so rare that there was little research into what actually made them different to any other breed. At one point it was mentioned that they had a more variable lifespan than any other breed and may be more susceptible to viruses but that was it. She was finally able to recognise what was normal behaviour and what wasn’t and therefore what she should encourage.

   She went through the lengthy manual at night before she went to sleep. It slowly started to dawn on her that Karkat was actually quite a high maintenance pet. He needed daily bathing to wash away the excess sopor slime, his skin and eyes were extremely photosensitive hence the reason why allowing their nocturnal habits was advised, the sopor slime needed to be changed regularly, he needed to eat three times a day at the very least and – according to the manual – trolls also had very high mental and emotional demands. So far Jade had kept Karkat mentally stimulated by introducing him to Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer and Playschool but she wasn’t sure about his emotional demands. He was grumpy all of the time. Was that because he needed more attention? Was she doing something wrong?

   She decided to sleep on it for now. The weekend was coming up soon so she could think about it then without the worries of work hanging over her head. The next morning she woke up, prepared for work and went downstairs. As she passed the living room she noticed that there was now a ceiling-high castle of building blocks, DVDs, books, rolled up magazines and newspapers and some jars from the kitchen. Karkat was sitting in front of the TV watching the early morning children’s shows. Sesame Street was currently teaching him how to count to six. It looked like she needed to find new ways to mentally stimulate him.

* * *

 

 

On Friday afternoon Jade came home with a tub of Lego. It was still light out so Karkat was probably still in his recoopracoon or sleeping on his pile. The piles – as she’d found out from the manual – were normal. Jade was worried there for a while but it turns out that trolls will naturally hoard things in piles, usually similar objects that they like. If he was napping right now she didn’t want to disturb him so she took the new box of plastic building blocks upstairs and left it in the spare room next to Karkat’s second pile. She supposed he’d compiled the pile there because she just didn’t seem to be using it and he put it right in the middle of the room. It was the neatest pile Jade had ever seen. It was made up of all of the things Jade had bought to entertain him, arranged into a beautifully stable pyramid shape. Karkat obviously didn’t sleep here; it was far too small for even Bec to sleep on and he still had his first pile up on the high shelf. Actually, now that she thought about it, she’d never seen what was in Karkat’s first pile. He was very secretive and protective of it.

   She decided to have a little bit of online time before cooking dinner. While the computer booted up she wondered what activity she would do with Karkat over the weekend. Could she take him swimming? He probably wouldn’t be allowed in the public swimming pool but she could take him to the beach. Could he even swim? The only place she ever needed to take Bec for a good cheering up and quality time was the park but Karkat was very poorly behaved whenever they went there. She logged onto Pesterchum, hoping she had some friends online who could tell her more about what activities she could do with her troll. A bright red handle was the only one lit up on the sidebar.

 

\-- at 5:46p.m. gardenGnostic began pestering turntechGodhead \--

 

GG: hi dave!  
GG: dave?  
GG: :/  
TG: sup jade  
GG: you took a while to respond there  
TG: i know  
TG: forgot i was still online didnt realise until i heard the chat beeping at me like some poor orphan kid on the street starving for food and attention  
GG: um :/  
GG: that simile was kind of inappropriate and made no sense  
TG: you know it was  
GG: so hows life on your end? and how is tavros?  
TG: geez nothing awesome has happened for weeks down at my place you know that  
TG: we talked like two or three days ago  
GG: yeah and you mentioned something about a new gig then  
TG: its not as big of a deal as youre making  
TG: yeah i just got off the phone with the club manager said hed like to have me on  
TG: but its just a regular old club nothing special or fancy about it except that its in a cleaner part of town where im less likely to get mugged  
TG: and the moneys better  
GG: well that’s always an improvement :)  
TG: hey didnt you have something to talk about  
GG: did i mention that??  
TG: nah  
TG: except you hung around despite my lack of presence at quarter to six on a friday afternoon  
TG: i would probably already be on my way to my regular gig if i hadnt dropped it like wile e. coyote drops rocks on that blue feathery motherfucker  
TG: and you asked about tavros  
TG: is karkat up to his douchebag antics again  
GG: no not this time  
GG: i was just starting to think that maybe i should be keeping him more mentally stimulated  
GG: you’ve done the whole ‘animal rescue’ thing with trolls before  
TG: dont get me started  
GG: i wasnt going to  
GG: i just wanted to know what kind of activities i should be trying with karkat  
GG: what kind of places should i be taking him to?  
TG: ok first of all dont take him anywhere until hes right at home in your house  
GG: ive already taken him to the park :S  
TG: too soon man dont take him anywhere else  
TG: these guys have a delicate frame of mind they need to feel safe and secure before they can start interacting with the rest of the world again  
TG: and karkat sounds like his previous owners were basket cases  
TG: itll take months for him to get over that  
GG: whoops  
GG: i guess ive already messed up :(  
TG: hey there its nothing you should beat yourself up on  
TG: and now that you’ve started you cant just stop all of a sudden  
TG: do something with him indoors if you want to try more stuff  
GG: ok  
GG: is there an easy way to find out what he likes?  
GG: i havent made a speech breakthrough yet so he isnt going to tell me anytime soon  
TG: you should check out what kind of random crap hes hoarding in his pile trolls dont hoard shit unless they really like it  
GG: i cant reach his pile he put it on that high shelf  
TG: the one in the laundry  
GG: yeah  
TG: look that may be a sign that he still needs a lot of space  
TG: rushing into rehabilitation isnt going to turn out so good for anyone  
TG: just chill out let him do his own thing because sometimes the best thing is just to give them time  
TG: and tavros is doing hella fine except that hes missing rufioh to pieces and theres no one else to play japanese childrens card games with  
TG: his raps are still as splendidly awful as ever  
GG: aw poor guy! i guess theres been nobody new around the apartment lately  
TG: nobody new  
TG: but the bro dragged in an awfully familiar face this morning  
GG: D:  
GG: is sollux back again???  
TG: yep  
TG: new owners gave him back cuz he burned them with fuckin psionic lasers  
TG: i am never gonna get over how fucking cool those things are its like straight out of xmen he can shoot lasers out of his eyes  
TG: thought he was all chilled out and ok now but i guess not  
GG: why dont you and dirk just consider keeping him?  
GG: it always seems that hes ok with you guys until you rehome him and then he suddenly acts up  
TG: jade i wish i could keep every troll that passes through these doors but there isnt enough space up in here  
GG: except that it sounds like sollux is going to be another case like tavros and you wont be able to rehome him  
TG: seems like it  
TG: well cross that bridge when we rock up to it  
GG: make up your minds about it soon ok  
GG: so  
GG: new job ;)  
GG: are you going to finally tell me where it is or do i have to stalk you on your way to work?  
TG: that is beyond creepy  
TG: please dont do anything beyond creepy  


 

   Karkat peered over the top stair. His new owner was still sitting at the computer typing. The text alternated from red to green on a program that he recognised as an instant messenger. He couldn’t tell if his owner was the red or the green text yet but she’d been doing this for a while now and as he watched he noticed that more green text would pop up whenever she typed while the red popped up in the breaks between her typing. He glanced at the clock. As much headway as Playschool was making with him, he still wasn’t great at telling the time but he knew where the hands were usually pointing at critical times of the day like dinnertime. By now she should have at least started cooking. He stayed silently where he was and glared at her as the text conversation unfolded. Sometimes she muttered to herself as she typed or read a reply out aloud to herself. She even laughed and made a variety of expressions as if she was actually talking to someone in person.

   Karkat glanced at the clock again. The hands had done a full circle. He grumbled quietly and slunk away, returning to his pile and snuggling into it while his stomach growled. He knew it would end up like this. She was going to starve him tonight just to tease him. He was actually surprised that she’d played nice for so long. Tears started to cloud his vision and tint it a diluted shade of red even though they weren’t warranted. He’d expected this and he was right. She tried to make him trust her so that she could break him more easily and almost succeeded but thanks to diligence on his part it hadn’t worked. So why was he wiping away streams of tears brought on by an achy chest?

   It was a half hour later when Bec trotted up the stairs with his food bowl in his mouth, sat down beside Jade and keened. Jade jumped at the suddenly non-electronic noise and looked down at Bec looking up at her with big, sad eyes and an empty bowl. She gasped and jumped to her feet, letting the office chair roll away behind her. She turned to the clock.

   “Oh no! I forgot to keep an eye on the time!”

   She grabbed Bec’s food bowl and ran downstairs. Bec followed her with his tail up and wagging. She gave him his kibble and pet mince and put a pack of grubloaf in the microwave for Karkat while she filled his bowl up with troll biscuit. While the microwave cooked she looked in her fridge, deciding that it’ll be have to be sandwiches for dinner tonight; it was too late to start cooking. The microwave beeped. Jade tipped the grubloaf into the troll biscuits and left with the bowl to find Karkat. She checked that he wasn’t anywhere else in the house before she went to the high shelf.

   Neither Karkat or his pile were visible over the edge of the shelf. It was dark in the laundry room. Jade knocked on the door and turned on the light. An annoyed hiss came from the shelf and the light went off straight away. She stepped into the room cautiously, wondering if Karkat was suddenly going to jump off the shelf and attack her. This was terrible. Not only had she done a bad job of rehabilitating him by taking him out of the house too soon, she’d almost forgotten to feed him tonight.

   “Karkat,” she said in a small voice, hoping he would hear how apologetic she felt. “I’m sorry, I was talking to Dave and I lost track of time. I didn’t mean to forget dinner. Look, I’ve made a bowl for you since I’m sure you’re hungry.” Karkat growled in response. Jade sighed. “Okay, I’ll just leave it here if you decide you want it later.”

   She put it down on top of the washing machine, making sure there was an audible _clack_ so Karkat would realise she wasn’t playing him for anything. She left the room, leaving the door open and the light off. After a whole minute of silence Karkat peeked over the edge of the shelf. The food was there – grubloaf and troll biscuits, the staple of his life at Jade’s house. Jade wasn’t lurking in the doorway but just as Karkat climbed onto the dryer, Bec came snuffling in, following the scent of troll food. They eyed each other for a few seconds. Then Bec pointedly ignored him and jumped up to the bowl on the washing machine. The troll just sat and watched while the dog chomped on his food, glancing at the door every now and again. Jade hadn’t noticed Bec coming in and didn’t come back to check on him. Bec finished off the food and licked some of the crumbs out of the bottom of the bowl. He hopped off the washer and trotted out of the laundry, licking his chops and holding his tail high in the air. Karkat climbed back onto the shelf and threw himself on his pile.

   Of course she didn’t care.

* * *

 

 

Jade didn’t notice Bec eating Karkat’s food because the moment she left the laundry she remembered that she’d left Dave hanging. She hurried back upstairs to her computer to see if she could still salvage the conversation but found this:

 

TG: that piece of shit was not up to the high standard the franchise carries itself in  
TG: i cant believe they hyped it up so much  
TG: game companies these days just get more and more disconnected you know what im saying  
TG: they think oh maybe if we just pulverise the populace with ads and tell everyone its the most fucking amazing kind of thing that they will ever get their hands on people will believe that whatever puke gets churned actually is the most amazing piece of shit theyve ever laid hands on  
TG: gamebro said some shit about it but that magazine is the worst thing to ever shame the human race with its existence  
TG: that said its still shit  
TG: there better be some patches up sometime in the near future or eb is gonna find itself covered in the shit storm residue of ultimate fan rage  
TG: sorry i know youre not much of a fan of video games  
TG: got a little carried away  
TG: you know you can interrupt whenever you want and just tell me if youre not interested  
TG: we can talk about whatever you like  
TG: if you want  
TG: you like animals right  
TG: or flowers since youre a botanist  
TG: you know that kind of reminds me that we havent met up recently  
TG: i mean as a group you know friends  
TG: everyones all bogged down with stuff in their own hoods  
TG: me too really i guess i just noticed it now because im technically one of the unemployed until next weekend  
TG: rose has been going on constantly about some kind of troll meet bullshit  
TG: think we should try it???  
TG: kinda nervous about that sort of thing since last time tavros met up with vriska he hid under my bed for two days  
TG: not even the sweet sound of some ill beats and dope rhymes could put a bro out of his misery  
TG: since you got a troll now too we can make it a big deal  
TG: all four us chillin like the sick troll pet owners we are  
TG: or it might be fun to chill with just two of us  
TG: …  
TG: you know  
TG: you still there jade?  
TG: did you forget to log out again???  
TG: man you can be pretty dopey sometimes all absentminded and whatnot  
TG: but hey thats cool we can just talk some other time  


 

\-- at 7:57p.m. turntechGodhead ceased pestering gardenGnostic --

 

GG: sorry!!!! i almost forgot to feed my pets and i think karkat is really upset about it  
\-- turntechGodhead has logged out and may not receive your message  
GG: but we should definitely have a get together soon  
\-- turntechGodhead has logged out and may not receive your message  
GG: even if it was just the two of us  
\-- turntechGodhead has logged out and may not receive your message

 

   That had turned out to be pretty awful. Jade planted her elbow on the desk and facepalmed. It just figures that as soon as Dave gets the mojo to ask her out, even if it was via chat message, she isn’t around to say yes. It was just one disappointing thing after another tonight. Maybe a movie would make her feel better.

 


	4. chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade and Karkat watch a movie and make amends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains spoilers for Pretty Woman if you haven't seen it yet and intend to see it.

There was a terrible roaring sound – the sound of the incinerator at the mill. The owners only ever fired it up when a troll died and the body needed to be taken care of. Karkat had never had the opportunity to see it (thankfully) but sometimes in his nightmares he would imagine what it looked like. He saw a giant box-shaped machine with rusty, grinding gears and fanbelts and a set of giant, jagged, metal jaws gnashing as a raging fire burned inside.

   The roaring seemed to be coming from all around him. He was too close. The fire flickered out of the giant jaws like massive tongues trying to lick at him. The flames were high and wild, burning ferociously hot and stealing all of the oxygen. Black smoke billowed from the small chimney at the top, occasionally puffing out white shapes – bones. There was a shadow in the fire, a black troll-shaped shadow standing amongst the orange and yellow flames. He was already too close to the searing heat but Karkat moved closer. The tongues of fire lashed out viciously. The shadow in the fire got clearer. Warm red eyes stared at him with a kind, knowing smile. Karkat cried out and reached a hand out for his mate. The fire engulfed the older troll and burned away his flesh, leaving a charred skeleton. Eventually, the bones burned to dust. Tears gushed from his eyes as Karkat reached out further. The metal jaws bit down on his wrist and pulled him in like a ravenous animal.

   Karkat awoke with a start in the darkness. Cold beads of sweat peppered his body. He swallowed, which was difficult when his mouth and throat were so dry. His stomach cramped and churned. He huffed. Jade had been keeping him too well-fed over the past month. A month ago he would easily skip meals and leave his troll biscuits for the ants. The pain in his tummy didn’t go away. He tried to sleep it off but that was impossible.

   After lying awake on his pile for half an hour, sweating, thirsty and hungry, he got up and climbed down from the shelf. The laundry door was left open so he had free access to the kitchen. He could raid Jade’s fridge for some food. Curiously, the kitchen light was still on. Karkat hunched his shoulders and glared at the light suspiciously as if it would explode if he made any sudden movements. He could see the time on the kitchen clock. When the little hand and big hand were placed like that at night the whole house was usually dark. Then again, Jade was usually very forgetful.

   Voices were coming from the living room. Karkat crept over to the door, curiosity getting the best of him, and peeked into the room. It was dark in there, save for the glow of the TV. There were human voices coming from it but not the overly cheery enthusiasm of Big Bird or Monica Trapaga. It sounded more raw and intelligent. He could also smell food in the room, something savoury.

   He got down on all fours and crawled towards the back of the couch. He crouched there for a moment and then crawled to one end and looked around it. He ducked back behind the furniture when he spotted Jade’s head on the arm of the couch but he’d also spotted a big bowl on the coffee table. That was probably where the food was. He crept to the other end of the couch and around it, sitting just under the arm and scouting the area. Jade was lying on the couch with all of the throw pillows under her head and shoulders. Bec lay on his side on the floor in front of her. He watched Karkat carefully and Karkat glared at him. The troll slowly shuffled closer to the table and reached for the bowl. Bec suddenly perked up and barked gruffly at him. The sudden noise startled Jade. Her eyes quickly darted around the living room to see what Bec had alerted her to and fell on Karkat. He stared at her like a deer in the headlights. Jade’s eyes followed his arm. His hand was only inches away from grabbing her half-full popcorn bowl.

   “Are you still hungry?” she asked. “Didn’t you eat enough?”

   Karkat shook his head and growled, directing his malice straight at Becquerel, who growled back.

   “Did Bec eat your food? Bad dog!”

   Bec turned to look at his owner and whimpered, not entirely sure what he’d done wrong. Jade sat up and leaned over to push the popcorn closer to Karkat’s end of the table. Karkat snatched the bowl and ducked back behind the couch. He took a handful of those little white puffy things and shoved them in his mouth. They were soft but crunchy and deliciously salty with smooth, creamy butter that melted off the puffs and onto his tongue. It was a euphoric eating experience, the likes of which he hadn’t had since he ate grubloaf for the first time.

   “I hope that kind of food doesn’t make you sick.”

   Karkat looked up. Jade was staring down at him over the back of the couch. Despite the grim words she looked a little bit amused, which Karkat took as a sign to trust her less. She turned away and got off the couch, going into the kitchen for who knows what. Karkat stood up with his arms wrapped around his bowl of popcorn and peered over the back of the furniture to see the TV. The scene he was greeted with was two adult humans kissing. He popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth and stared. He’d seen and heard worse in his life. Karkat climbed over the back of the couch and sat down on the cushions. He put his bowl in his lap and stuffed more popcorn in his mouth, eyes glued to the television with rapt attention. This was far more interesting than anything that happened on Sesame Street.

   A bowl was put down in front of him on the coffee table. He looked at it. It was full of fresh troll biscuits. Jade sat down on the other end of the couch and opened a bag of potato chips. She noticed Karkat’s captivation with the movie and picked up the remote control for the DVD player.

   “Do you want to watch the movie from the beginning?” she asked. Karkat just squashed himself into the corner of the couch and glared at her. Even so, she stopped the movie and started it again.

   From the moment he saw the title Karkat was in love with this movie. That poor, down-on-her-luck woman meeting that jerk who just wanted to use her. And then she got snubbed by that uppity bitch. He could sympathise with her; that’s how he’d been for almost his entire life. Then the training, oh, the training. Karkat knew all about training, although nobody had ever been as nice to him as they were to Vivian Ward. The lack of wooden whacking spoons and leashes made the small scene very unrealistic in his eyes. As the movie continued Karkat started to tear up as Edward Lewis fell for his co-star and then saved her from his lackey (Karkat had no idea what a lawyer was) who tried to use her just like everyone else. By this point Jade had fallen asleep and her glasses were askew. He glanced at her towards the end as Lewis climbed the fire escape to reach Ward. There was a parallel between their life and this movie (a very tenuous parallel but he didn’t see it that way). She took him in, she paid for him and he initially believed it was with the stipulation that she would be rid of him after an indeterminate period of time but it seemed that she intended to keep him, even after he was horrible and rejected her. He snuck away after the (wonderful, romantic) kiss and climbed up onto his shelf. He spent the rest of the night under his pile wondering if Jade Harley really was the Richard Gere to his Julia Roberts.

* * *

 

 

The next morning Jade awoke feeling stiff in her back and legs. It took her a moment to get oriented but once she did she stretched out on the couch and checked her glasses to see if sleeping with them on had bent or broken them. Satisfied with their undamaged state, she sat up. The TV was still going, playing the title screen of Pretty Woman. She groaned and switched off the television and DVD player. Becquerel was asleep halfway under the coffee table. The popcorn and troll biscuit bowls were both empty and left abandoned on the table. Karkat was nowhere to be seen.

   She got up stiffly, stretching and shaking her limbs to bring them to life. Bec stirred and got up to shadow her as she made her way to the kitchen to turn off the light. The time display on the oven told her it was almost twelve o’clock. She groaned at that but didn’t really mind. On Saturday she wasn’t normally awake until ten or eleven so it was only slightly later than usual. However, what did worry her was Karkat’s disappearance. He was angry with her but he’d stayed to watch the movie. She went to look for him, this time starting in the laundry. She dragged a chair into the room and stood on it, needing to stand on her tip-toes and stretch her neck to peer over the shelf.

   Right there in front of her was a much bigger pile than the one she’d found in her spare room. It was dirty and compiled mainly of torn linen and things that he’d stolen from her and buried. She spied her Nintendo Wii and a nun-chuck poking out at the bottom (she hoped they still worked) and some of her games and DVDs. There was her beach towel, the one with a picture of little red crabs scuttling over a beach; some soap, his water bottle, his clothes, two of her hot water bottles and one hot water bottle cover, the one that was shaped like a little yellow crab with googly eyes. Crowning the pile in an ironically majestic way was one of Bec’s chew toys, a pink crab that squeaked when squeezed. She wondered for a moment if Karkat liked crabs or liked going to the beach.

   She called his name quietly just to check that he was actually there. He may be asleep. If that was the case she hoped he was in the recoopracoon this time. There was no reply. Jade was about to step down off the chair when suddenly there was a rustle and a little squeak as the chew toy fell off the pile. She looked over the shelf again. Karkat was poking his head out from within his pile. He stared at her blankly. Jade couldn’t help but smile. This was really the first time Karkat had regarded her with anything other than suspicion and aggression.

   “Morning,” she said. “Were you asleep? Did I wake you up?”

   Karkat just stared at her. She knew he could understand her so he could at least respond, yet he was choosing not to.

   “Did you like the movie?”

   Karkat’s lips twitched. Jade thought that might have been a smile.

   “If you like watching movies we can do that more often.” She gave his pile a once over. “Do you like crabs? Is that something I should get for dinner one day?”

   Karkat’s stare became a hard glare with a very pronounced frown. Okay, he didn’t want to eat crabs. Jade guessed again:

   “Do you want to go to the beach and see crabs?”

   His face softened again. He’d viewed the beach in pictures and on television but only seen the real thing once – once as he was being driven by a pet courier to a new owner in a cage on the back of a ute. The car went down a coastal highway overlooking a sandy, yellow beach and a vast expanse of shimmering blue water. The driver had turned off the highway onto a smaller road that would take him onto a new one. The tributary wound between the dunes and the cool sea breeze blew the coarse grains over the road, forcing the driver to go slower to prevent slipping. Karkat admired the foreign scenery of little mounds of sand, grassy tussocks and white waves. The ute had to stop at a set of traffic lights. It was there that Karkat spotted a huge crab crawling its way across the road from one dune to another. He giggled at its funny sideways walk and eyestalks and the way its bright red shell made it look burnt. But then the traffic lights changed and another human vehicle turned a corner and crushed it.

   He must have been giving her an odd look because she nodded. He could only see half of her face from where he was but when she spoke to him again he could practically hear the smile in her voice.

   “Maybe in the future, after you feel better about everything, we should go sometime. That’s a promise, so make sure you hold me to it, okay?”

   Karkat’s eyes widened. He crawled out of his pile slowly, dismantling it a bit. Jade put her heels down as Karkat came over to the edge and looked down at her. She reached up to pet him but paused when he flinched. She put both hands on the edge of the shelf where he could see them. He studied her fingers as if they were something interesting. Then he covered the fingers of her left hand with his right. Jade had been trying her best to give him all of the kindness she could spare and then some. She tried to be as sincere as possible. But she was human. It was almost too large and too alien of a concept for Karkat to get his head around; that a human would gladly treat him nicely. Even though she was his keeper she kept him in a world with no cages, no chains, no boxes, no culling posts, incinerators, rats, disease and death. He wondered if this was freedom. Was this was freedom actually felt like? Could he still say he was free even if someone still owned him?

   Jade watched him curiously. She didn’t so much own him as take care of him and she did it better than anybody ever had. Slowly, he nodded.

   Suddenly Bec started scratching at the door and whimpering. Jade turned away and hopped off the chair to open the back door for him. He sped out and only made halfway across the yard before he had to crouch as he suffered a terrible episode of explosive diarrhoea. Jade gasped and ran to the phone to start dialling the vet. Karkat just smirked and hoped that his food was the cause of it.


End file.
